I Like My Movies Al Dente

No matter how extraordinarily beautiful your work is, there will always be someone who thinks poorly of it. That’s how I feel about my film NUNE.

When I review images from that production and the experiences that came with it, the material is charged with energy, love, and grace.

Billions of people live on this planet. And they are all isolated in some form of culture, group, education system, influence, society, tribe, and experience some level of brainwash.

I understand why advertisers work hard to force us all into one way of thinking: to go with what’s popular. Not only does this generate the most revenue for them: but they know how difficult it is to get everyone to conform to one idea. They isolate our habits into “demographics” by age, gender, and interests—trying to narrow billions to focus on specific things made popular. To do this, they have to brainwash everyone.

From an artistic standpoint, can you imagine making something that appeals to the millions of varying tastes on this planet? It’s a miracle that we can all agree on anything.

So with the things I create, I don’t expect everyone to appreciate what I do. Yet, I also don’t understand when they don’t.

From a spiritual perspective, everything narrows down to “levels of consciousness.” You have people with low levels of consciousness who are operating on a Neanderthal level. Many people are completely brainwashed by television, religion, and anything else that programmed them at an early age; including parental indoctrinations.

Then you have the people who are free thinkers and are open-minded. You have lovers of Beauty—but even then, that’s subjected to each person’s level of consciousness and what they consider to be “beautiful.”

Some people think office art is cool or beautiful. An art lover who has spent her entire life appreciating fine art would find office art to be horrifying. Although she may not recognize it, what she’s reacting to is the low level of consciousness found in sterilized creativity. You have people who love classical music and country music. Those genres have a unique conscious vibration. They are just as painful for a modernist or avant-gardist to hear as it would be for the former to vibrate to art-rock. Both contrasting genres can be equally offensive. And that is why they say “art is in the eye of the beholder.” But this really should be rephrased to “Art is in the eye of the Idiot.”

From there, you can duke it out.

Consciousness changes (and hopefully evolves) over time. During its golden years, classical music was considered “art music” for the intelligentsia. Today’s generation of kids vibrating at a higher consciousness find that music excruciating and archaic. We can debate about the “quality” of today’s music, but we can’t deny the consciousness within some of the music.

Herzog’s 1970s film, THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER is a brilliant depiction of how a genius vibrating at a highly conscious state was tormented by classical music even during the time when it was considered high art.

Within the realm of painting, film, dance, poetry, music, and various creative arts—you can measure a person’s level of consciousness by the aesthetics they appreciate.

Yet, it seems condescending to call someone’s taste to be “high” or “low.” But not when it’s an observation of where they are simply at in their process of learning, education, experience, and exposure. When we talk about first, third, or ninth grade students, we don’t associate that with “low” or “high.” Their level of education is where they are at.

As such, I find it hard to believe that whereas some people think my film NUNE is the best thing on earth, there are others who think it is the worst thing they’ve ever seen.

An analogy for how I deal with it is this:

When I lived in Brooklyn, I had a friend from Bologna visit me. He tasted the pasta here in America—even from the most authentic Italian restaurants in NYC—and went “Yuck!” This food was disgusting to him.

He insisted that we make the food ourselves. One day, we went grocery shopping at an Italian grocer and went back to my kitchen, where he taught me how to cook. We made Bolognese sauce from scratch (no canned tomatoes) the way they do it back home in Italy.

I learned that “crushed red pepper” is not the same thing as “pepperoncini” and yes, there is a marked difference in the bite.

The bad assery of Brianna Joy Chomer, who stars as “Nune” in #nunemovie

Long story short, I learned how to make real Italian food. Many Americans are used to growing up with Ragù. To them, anything pre-made from Sysco served in an American-Italian restaurant is delicious and a step up. Some Americans also like their pasta mushy because they grew up on Chef Boyardee served straight from the can.

It took Americans decades to learn what “al dente” is. And still, many of them hate the texture. I had a friend go as far as calling it “fake pasta.” LOL. Fake according to who?

Art is in the eye of the Idiot.

So, for those who hate my film NUNE, I’d say, they have never seen an art film.

They have never been exposed to art cinema or real experimental films. They have never loved the film arts (the French New Wave or had a film history education outside of Classical Hollywood cinema).

They have only seen blockbuster movies and TV sitcoms that fed everything to them like a sloppy pile of Chef Boyardee. They grew up on laugh tracks that triggered when to recognize a line meant to be funny. And most of their entertainment is scripted to make them not engage in introspection or critical thinking.

My film is pure, just like how my friend’s cooking is pure.

If you’ve never tasted purity before, it would seem tasteless, bland and even awful. But for those who understand, I would say yeah, they definitely have a high level of consciousness:P

Ji Strangeway

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About

Ji Strangeway

Executant of the Ineffable

The Three Gates of Speech stipulates that you ask these questions before putting your foot in your mouth: Is it True? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind?
Since this doesn't fit the purpose for every occassion, the criteria for my path is:
Is it True?
Is it Necessary?
Is it Indigo?